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Tigre Interpreters

Professional Tigre interpreting, virtual or in person, for the settings where getting it wrong has consequences — asylum interviews, hearings, attorney meetings, medical appointments and school meetings.

Tigre is not Tigrinya, and booking Tigrinya is the common error

Can a Tigrinya interpreter cover a Tigre speaker? Not for testimony. Tigre and Tigrinya are both Ethio-Semitic languages of Eritrea, but the UN Commission of Inquiry on Eritrea describes Tigrinya as closely related to Tigre yet distinct from it, and Glottolog, the ISO standard and the Census Bureau all treat them as separate languages (tig and tir). The names differ by two letters on an intake form, which is how the wrong one gets booked — and Tigrinya is the Eritrean language the system is used to: EOIR’s FY2018 yearbook ranked Tigrinya fifteenth among all languages in immigration court, and Tigre does not appear.

Tigre speakers are a large part of Eritrea, not a small minority. The Commission put the Tigre at about 30% of the population, second to the Tigrinya at 55% (estimates only: Eritrea has never held a census). They live in the northern, western and coastal lowlands — Gash-Barka, Anseba and the Northern Red Sea — and across the border in eastern Sudan, and are predominantly Sunni Muslim, with a small Christian minority among the Mensa’. Most Tigrinya speakers, by contrast, are Christian highland farmers.

Region, religion and the name of the language change who should interpret

An Eritrean asylum applicant from the lowlands who is given a Tigrinya interpreter may be telling a Muslim lowland story in a second language, to someone from a different region and religion. The applicant will rarely object; what you get is a shorter, flatter account. Ask the client which language they grew up speaking and whether they have a preference about the interpreter, and tell us. For Tigrinya speakers, see Tigrinya.

Use the name Tigre. Tigre speakers in Sudan sometimes call the language hāsā, but Hasa, Xasa and Khasa are considered pejorative by the Tigre themselves. On a request form or in front of the client, it is Tigre.

Tigre dialects — Mansa’, Habab, Beni-Amer, Barka, Semhar, Algeden, Senhit and others — are highly intelligible with each other, above 91% by the figures Ethnologue reports. The exception is Dahalik, spoken on the Dahlak islands, at 24–51%; if the client is from Dahlak, say so.

A very small pool: plan for relay through Tigrinya or Arabic

• Lead time matters. There are very few Tigre–English interpreters in the United States. Give us as much notice as you can, and we confirm whether we can staff it before you book.
• Relay is often the realistic option. Tigre–Tigrinya–English if the client is genuinely at ease in Tigrinya and accepts it; Tigre–Arabic–English if Arabic is the client’s second language — Tigre speakers have historically used Arabic as a lingua franca. Ask the client which, rather than assuming either.
• Script. Since the late nineteenth century Tigre has been written in the Ge’ez (Ethiopic) script, the same family of script as Tigrinya and Amharic, used mainly by the Eritrean government and by Christian speakers. Ask what the client actually reads — Ge’ez, Arabic or neither — before relying on a written statement, and plan for it to be read back aloud.
• Sudan. Because Tigre is also spoken in eastern Sudan, a client may arrive with Sudanese documents in Arabic and a Sudanese life history. The language question is the same; the documents need an Arabic reader.

Tigre is a rare language

Only a handful of qualified Tigre interpreters work in the United States — we found five or fewer across state court rosters, professional directories and freelance platforms — and courts and hospitals book them first. That is why Tigre carries the rare-language rate, 75% on top of the base: $140 an hour by video or phone with a one-hour minimum, and $192.50 an hour in person with a two-hour minimum, plus travel. Give us as much notice as you can: two weeks is comfortable, a few days often is not enough.

We would rather tell you that before you book a hearing date than after. If your date is fixed and close, say so when you enquire and we will tell you honestly whether we can staff it rather than accepting and hoping.

The standard-availability languages are: Spanish, Portuguese, French, Mandarin, Cantonese, Arabic, Russian, Korean, Vietnamese, Haitian Creole, Polish, Italian, German, Japanese, Hindi, Urdu, Persian, Turkish, Ukrainian, Tagalog, Bengali, Punjabi, Gujarati, Tamil, Armenian, Greek, Hebrew, Romanian, Serbian, Bosnian, Somali and Nepali. Every other language we offer carries the 25–30% limited-availability rate, except the rare languages — Mam, K’iche’, Q’anjob’al, Tzotzil, Mixtec, Fuzhounese, Hakka, Hakha Chin, Kachin, Balochi, Bambara, Soninke, Tigre, Chaldean Neo-Aramaic and Assyrian Neo-Aramaic — which carry 75%. If a language is not on the standard list it is not because we cannot do it — it is because the pool of qualified interpreters in the United States is small enough that we will not promise a date without checking.

By video, by phone or in person

Virtual interpreting runs on Zoom, Google Meet or Microsoft Teams, or over the telephone. It is quicker to arrange, costs less and carries no travel charge, and it suits appointments, calls and most meetings.

In person is what venues with their own rules tend to expect, and the right choice when documents are being signed or several people are speaking at once. Tell us the platform, or the city and the venue, when you send the request.

Where interpretation is used

The settings differ in what they demand of the interpreter, which is worth saying because they are frequently priced as though they were the same work:

• Asylum and immigration interviews. USCIS asylum interviews require the applicant to bring an interpreter, and the interview can be rescheduled if the interpreter does not appear or is not competent — which makes this the setting where getting it right matters most.
• Attorney–client meetings and declarations. Preparing testimony, taking a statement, going through documents.
• Depositions and hearings. Where the record is being made and accuracy is examined afterwards.
• Medical appointments. Note that hospitals receiving federal funding generally must provide language assistance themselves, so ask before you hire.
• School meetings. IEP meetings and parent conferences — districts also have their own obligations here.
• Business meetings and signings, such as real estate closings.

Each setting has its own page — who has to provide the interpreter, what the meeting asks of one and what it costs: see interpreters by setting.

What it costs

Rates are per interpreter, per hour, and billed from the scheduled start time rather than from when everyone actually arrives.

• Virtual — $80 per hour, one-hour minimum. Zoom, Google Meet, Teams or telephone.
• In person — $110 per hour, two-hour minimum.
• Limited-availability languages — add 25–30%. Which languages those are is listed below rather than left vague.
• Rare languages — add 75%: $140 per hour virtual and $192.50 per hour in person. These are the languages with only a handful of qualified interpreters in the United States, listed below.
• Travel for in-person work — $0.70 per mile from the interpreter's location.

How the travel charge works out

Travel is charged at $0.70 per mile from the interpreter's location, which means you can work it out rather than wait for a quote: a 20-mile round trip is $14, a 60-mile round trip is $42, a 150-mile round trip is $105. There is no separate call-out fee on top.

We will not pretend to know in advance where the interpreter will be coming from — that depends on the language, the date and the venue. What we do is confirm the interpreter and the exact travel figure before you book, so it is never a surprise on the invoice. Virtual assignments carry no travel charge at all, which is one reason most of what we do is virtual.

How booking an interpreter works

• You send the request with the form below: the language, the setting, the format, the date and how long it should last.
• We confirm before you commit: the interpreter, the exact price and the travel figure if there is one. We reply within minutes, four business hours at most, and no payment is taken at this stage.
• You confirm, and the interpreter is booked for your date.

What we will tell you before you book

Two things, both of which occasionally cost us the booking. Whether the venue supplies its own interpreter. Immigration court provides one. Hospitals receiving federal funding generally must provide language assistance. School districts have obligations of their own. If yours does, you should not be paying us — ask them first.

And whether we can actually staff your date. For a limited-availability or rare language on short notice the honest answer is sometimes no, and we would rather say it than accept a booking we cannot fill. Interpretation is not translation: see certified translation at $24.95 per page if what you need is a document rendered in writing.

What to have ready

The more of this comes in the first message, the fewer exchanges before you have a price:

• The language, the date, the start time and how long it should run.
• Virtual or in person: the platform, or the city and the venue.
• The setting and the subject matter.
• How many people need interpreting for.
• Any credential the venue requires of the interpreter.

Request an interpreter

Tell us the date, the language and the setting and we will come back with the interpreter, the exact price and the travel figure if there is one — before you commit to anything.

Sources

The facts on this page about the language and its speakers in the United States were checked against these sources on October 28, 2026.

• UN Human Rights Council — Report of the detailed findings of the Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in Eritrea, A/HRC/29/CRP.1 (June 2015)
• Glottolog — Tigre (dialects); see also Tigrinya, tigr1271
• Wikipedia — Tigre language (dialects, the name “Hasa”, writing system)
• Executive Office for Immigration Review — Statistics Yearbook, Fiscal Year 2018 (Table 9, top 25 languages)
• US Census Bureau — American Community Survey language code list

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